Swedish Democrats

The trend on the continent to the destruction of the main centre left and centre right parties continues apace. The Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats in most countries have lost their supremacy as leading parties capable of polling well and even forming majority governments. That is so pre Euro and twentieth century.

Sweden still has a government led by the Social Democrats, though it is a minority administration that needs the good will of a number of opposition parties to allow it to pass a budget and stay in office, even with its coalition partners the Greens making it a larger minority. The latest polls for the forthcoming General Election show a strong spurt in the performance of the Swedish Democrats, a populist anti immigration party. The other parties regard the Swedish Democrats as unacceptable and wish to keep them out of government. Polling at 20% in the latest surveys, the SD remain around 5% below the Social Democrats.

Italy has established a government out of the Lega and Five Star, two challenger parties that did better than the Socialists and Forza, itself a remodelled centre right party to displace the Christian Democrats more than twenty years ago. Spain still has a Socialist led government, but in a minority and needing to do deals with the challenger parties to get anything through.

So what do these new parties want? They want some relaxation of EU budget controls. Several of them want a reduction in migration into the EU and a change of policy towards economic migrants. Many will be happy to stay with the EU but want it substantially reformed, whilst others think the EU is a big part of the problem and openly campaign to quit the Euro or leave the EU altogether.

The EU needs to think carefully how it responds to these mass movements. So far the Commission seems to think it can just ignore these elections. Even more bizarre is the way traditional parties just accept their fate and do nothing to get back in touch with voters as that would require standing up to the EU.

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99 Comments

“So far the Commission seems to think it can just ignore these elections” – what a bizarre comment. These elections are national matters, and none of the Commission’s business. Of course it is ignoring them. You would be the first to throw a tantrum if it expressed any view of national elections. It seems you don’t really understand how the EU works or what the Commission is

So our refendum was a national matter was it, What utter nonsense. Everything the Commission does impacts on the voters of Europe and you are ‘blind’ if you think these votes are not de facto a comment on what it does.

The MEP system is toothless and the Commission un democratic as we see with the latest disgrace over Junkers appointee.

So the only way the voters can influence the Commission is via their own governments and what you are saying is that the Commission is right to ignore them.

What he is inferring, surely, is that the Commission should be asking itself why there is a pan-European growth in such protest Parties, whether Left, Right or Utterly Frightening.

For all the talk of trade and economics, a major justification for formation of what has ultimately become the EU was political – to try to prevent the re-growth of National Socialist style groups. Sadly, the actions of the EU appear to be fomenting precisely that which it wished to nullify.

That former spirit of the not-quite-revolutions of 1968,Tariq Ali,wrote a book called “The Extreme Centre- a Warning” a few years ago.I haven’t read it but from what I remember of the reviews,it’s not far different from our host’s analysis.

If the EU Commission continues to ignore the wishes of its citizens, as expressed by their choices at national level, it truly has no future whatsoever. The business of doing away with nation states is clearly being challenged at that national level now. The EU does not need to express a view, but to survive it must take note!

As suggested by our host, I might expect the EU to decide how it will respond to the mass movements which could threaten its existence. A little navel gazing by the EU would’t go amiss. Whether or not the EU expresses a view of national elections is neither here nor there.

I obviously am in need of being better informed of recent developments. I give you Greece, but funnily enough there appears to have been enough reactions to calm down those who in the EU Commision were interfering in the Greek situation.
So now, please spell out precisely how the EU commission meddled with the Italian elections and in Catalonia, and how they go on doing the same with the Swedish ones. Thanks in advance.
You know, JR’s view of the world is not the only one, and you don’t have to slavishly defend it against anybody daring to put a different opinion. You would get a “better mark” if from time to time you were able to add a thing with just a bit of an analysis (a la Denis Cooper, for example).

Which elections Hef? The ones where the commission effectively placed their men in charge of their govts? Or are you meaning the recent ones? Please provide an explanation why the EU interfered in both the Greek and Italian elections previously. An EU coup by anyone’s standards. I would be interested to know why you think it right the EU or its commission should interfere with any national election. Including g funding subsidiary groups to do their bidding. As for Catalonia, why did the EU not interfere to stop the brutal way the govt treated its people to quash a democratic vote as it states so very often it is responsible for peace across Europe. Should the U.K. Govt acted the same brutal way to quash the Scottish referendum? A better critique would get you a higher mark than pure high handed cynicism. Thanks in advance.

Now it all makes sense…you think that the EU is mainly about trade…doh.

The Common Market was meant to be mainly about trade, whereas the EU is mainly a political construct. Maybe you should educate yourself about where the EU is heading by reading the Five President’s Report.

So far it seems to be a lot of populist hit air, assuring their supporters they are keeping to their word but seemingly little concrete being done and the EU commissars know this plus they have all the firepower, financial, Italy needs Germany money to buy its paper to stay liquid and the ECJ whose judgments will always favour the Union over the nation state.

Their Achilles heel is Brexit, hence they are fighting tooth and nail to ensure the U.K.s terms do not become a magnet for other disaffected countries.

The U.K. is different because we have taken action, here the liberal elites who always think they know better than the proles are doing the EUs job for them.

I have no doubt that the hidden agenda of our pro EU civil servants and politicians is to ensure that nothing is done that will threaten the project, hence the battle from Theresa May down to keep as as fully aligned as politically she thinks she can get away with.

As we saw with the hubristic approach of Cameron during the referendum, she does so at her peril.

Indeed. I’m shocked that they are so stupid to think we don’t know that she is colluding with Merkle, other European leaders, the EU itself and our own Civil Serpents behind the scenes to undermine the will of the people in a referendum where is was abundantly clear that we wanted out of all the EU clutches in whatever form!

50 odd years from now historians are going to look back in amazement at the pathetic national political institutions that we currently endure. The lack of moral standing, talent and ability, their willingness to do as little as possible and their contempt and simple dishonesty for and to the electorate. We are truly heading for trouble.

Look at Germany’s control of the EU; Martyn Selmayr – head of EU Civil Service, Gunter Oettinger – Commissioner for Resources, Klaus Welle, Secretary General of the EU Parliament, Helga Schmid, European Action Group. And now the suggestion to make Merkel the next president of the Commission. The European national leaders should hang their heads in shame; they have voted to be a colony of Germany.

Absolutely. German is in direct control of the EU and its institutions.

Germany’s used trade credit, export-reimport tactics, foreign investment strategies etc to generate dependency on the German economy and expand their political and economic leverage over both EU and non-EU member states.

German is the beating heart of the EU without which the EU would collapse

In the UK we have a political class that since the mid 1990’s have sacrificed all decency, pretence to the truth and morality and become pure political animals as they take decisions without any concern for doing the right thing. That degree of shamelessness is rank arrogance by a political elite that’s become unaccountable and untouchable when in government.

Their concern for re-election is not as strong as they know they can introduce ‘under the counter’ decisions that affect us all without asking our permission. Labour opened up the borders in 1998, weaponised and politicised immigration to achieve a political advantage.

What can we do except work with what we have. We look to moral politicians today and the cupboard is bare except for a few decent people like John and smattering others in the Labour party.

50 odd years from now historians are going to look back in amazement at the pathetic national political institutions that we currently endure

I think historians will look back and wonder why we endured it rather than take a chance on new parties and single issues.

Why do we keep returning either Labour or the Conservatives? The palpable concern among the population on 27 June 2016 that we had actually made a change to our our systems that would need to be dealt with demonstrated why we rarely vote to change things. It unnerves us (and our establishment can not enact change).

That greatest of political analysts,Lenin,wrote,in 1905, of the Frankfurt Parliament which was convened to develop a constitution as a response to the revolutions of 1848 in the German Confederation (and indeed across Europe):-

“It is not enough to call an assembly “constituent”,it is not enough to convene representatives of the people,even though they be chosen by universal and equal suffrage,direct elections and secret ballot….In addition to all these conditions,it is necessary that the constituent assembly have the authority and the force to constitute a new order.There have been cases in the history of revolutions when an assembly was nominally constituent,while in actual fact real force and power was not in it’s hands but in the hands of the old autocracy.This was the case in the German revolution of 1848 which explains why the “constituent” assembly of that period,the notorious Frankfurt Parliament,acquired the shameful reputation of a contemptible “talking shop”.That Assembly babbled about freedom,decreed freedom but took no practical steps to remove government institutions which were destroying freedom.It is quite natural therefore that that pitiable assembly of pitiable liberal-bourgeois prattlers withdrew from the scene in ignominy.”

Peter Wood..you mention all of these German people in unelected positions but we have our own unelected establishment, civil service and HoL here at home which is the same thing. If we had wanted, and if our government had wanted, I’m very sure that UK could have had it’s fair share of these EU positions..but anyhow it’s too late now.

The vision:
We need a world where trade flows freely and safely and where every country does what it does best. We need checks to make sure that things like meat and arms and machinery are not going to harm us. We need Europe to be part of this world of free trade, flowing across the round world where we live.

ThevEU is not going to do this. It is restrictive. It micro manages – often wrongly (immigration is a very good example of this). It is years out of date in its 1950s constitution and in its aims (peace between France and Germany! For heaven’s sake!)

We need a Free Trade Association in Europe based on a market where goods flow freely after being carefully checked on international lines.

“The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) was established by a Convention signed in Stockholm on 4 January 1960. The main objective of the Association was to liberalise trade among its Member States, and the Convention thus contained basic rules regarding free trade in goods and related disciplines.”

“The updated EFTA Convention, the Vaduz Convention, was signed on 21 June 2001 and entered into force on 1 June 2002, in parallel with the EU-Swiss Bilateral Agreements. It included several significant changes, of which the most important was the integration of the principles and rules established between the EU and the EEA EFTA States in the EEA Agreement, and between the EU and Switzerland in the EU-Swiss Bilateral Agreements. Important new provisions included the free movement of persons, trade in services, movement of capital and protection of intellectual property.”

We’ll be leaving so it is of no real concern to us how they conduct their political/ economic business- all countries budgets need to be minded including EU countries, so I don’t see what the problem is- and as far as migration goes better controls are already in place- how things will be following the latest fighting in the Idlib region we have no idea yet- it may be there will be another exodus of large numbers – but am quite sure that given that we were largely responsible for starting this whole trouble in the first place, Bush and Blair? we will need to face up to our responsibilities when the time comes- UK and EU

Whilst there will probably be a hardcore of rebels who need to be bombed to oblivion ,the Idlib situation may not be as bad as is suggested in certain quarters.

I saw an interesting comment from an article (“Russia offers a carrot to Syrian Rebels”) in the Wall St Journal a few days ago:-“The Russians are achieving an almost mythical status among the ranks of the rebels for their ability to entice defections through the reconciliation process.”

The source of that quote was American-Nicholas Heras,Fellow at the Center for a New American Security,which advises the US government on Syria.

But what the imposter Andy doesn’t seem to understand is that anyone who voted in the 1975 Referendum would now be 58+ and it is precisely that group who were more opposed to the EU than others. That 58+ age group have experience of his glorious EU and they don’t like it. After all they were the young in 1975, so with age comes wisdom.

You may do Andy a disservice – he/she, and others like him/her, thought they were voting for the status quo. He/she didn’t understand there is no status quo where the EU is concerned, still doesn’t. And he/she says that Brexiteers didn’t know what THEY were voting for!

Indeed the FPTP system is why the Tory Party needs to be recaptured by the sound wing of real Tories and the wrongheaded, EUphile, tax borrow and piss down the drain, Libdims (like May & Hammond) sidelined or kicked out.

Our parties are now broken, we are just waiting for a leader with the vision and desire to create a totally new party that is fit for a new future and not the old knockabout left/right/loon parties of the 20th century

Indeed they are broken. The odd good person but most look after themselves, the elite business and vested interests, the EU. Us plebs come way down the list until election time when they……lie like the Tory’s to get our vote. Promise exit in entirety then Chequers capitulation and sell out!

Exactly just as MP’s so often forget about voters (and the Cast Iron, EU sceptic, Low Tax at Heart and £1M IHT threshold promises made) just after elections. Responding to party rather than listening to the electorate or even party members.

Highest taxes for 40+ years and appalling and deteriorating value in public service from May and Hammond.

Off-topic, I see a Tory MP, Stewart Jackson, is saying we should drop the crazy Chequers proposal and try for a trade deal like CETA, but with a “plus” added, and failing that fall back on the WTO treaties:

“A FORMER Brexit insider said last night that defaulting to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules would be better than the “humiliating Chequers surrender” if a ‘Canada-plus’ agreement with the EU is not reached.”

Well, firstly, the “plus” would seem necessary because CETA does not involve a customs union and therefore it would not by itself solve the fake Irish border “problem”, just as the WTO treaties do not involve a customs union. However there is a simple solution to that “problem”, if only Theresa May could be persuaded that it is primarily a problem for the EU and not for the UK.

However secondly we come back to the low economic value of trade deals such as CETA and TTIP compared to the basic WTO deal, as repeatedly pointed out and most recently here a few days ago:

“I don’t say that an extra 0.4% of GDP would not be worth having – after all we are glad when the UK economy grows naturally by about that amount, which it typically does over a couple of months – but rather than showing the inadequacy of the existing WTO terms of trade with the US, as Liam Fox argued, it shows the exact opposite.”

It would be far better to use the remaining time to sort out the legal and practical details of reverting to trade under the WTO treaties, which already exist and are already in force and do not need the UK government to crawl on its hands and knees begging for a deal.

Social democracy is different in every country, a bit like Paella in a string of restaurants. As presently conducting themselves the three major parties in the UK are social democrats though Labour are tipping towards the totalitarian. What is in a name, judge them by what they do. Their attitude to freedom of speech, taxation, and big government. Our three parties just nuance the same general policies. They leave the door open to a true democratic party of the right and a form of communism. I await the emergence of a party of the right dedicated to the re-birth of GB Ltd with a strong Christian/ Judaic basis with humanitarian Quaker principals.

And the very same fate awaits the UK politicians.
Cuts everywhere and the government trying to give £39 billion to the corrupt EU.
Cash from the UK to pay for infrastructure projects across the EU whilst we suffer the worst roads in Europe.
The i internet gives you nowhere to hide.

Your last paragraph could be talking about your own party John. Mrs May and Hammond are certainly not in touch with the people. They don’t seem to recognise the anger we feel towards a weak leadership and a chancellor who seems intent on seeing his own country go to the wall.

Good to see Mervyn King, former bank of England, saying that the whole Brexit debate has been badly handled not just by the government but by parliament itself. This is the fault of remainers intent on defying the democratic vote and the likes of the wealthy Gina Miller and others raising money to thwart our exit. As Mr King said, there is no way we could not manage with a free trade deal in Europe and other countries need this just as much as we do. Well done him!!

Osaka has just suffered catastrophic damage from a typhoon. UK Government and Local government should observe and learn as the Japanese recover from this disaster. In six months there will be little evidence of it ever happening.

JR writes: “So far the Commission seems to think it can just ignore these elections.”

Indeed, if reform of the EU is part of a national election debate, it seems reasonable to expect that the Commission would take an interest, just as it did when the Commission President made the following comments on the eve of our national referendum:“Asked about the consequences of a Brexit vote, Mr Juncker made it clear there would be no scope for further negotiations over better terms to try to keep the UK on board. ‘I have to add that the British policymakers and the British voters have to know there will be no kind of any renegotiation,’…. ‘We have concluded a deal with the prime minister, he got the maximum he could receive, we gave the maximum we could give. So there will be no kind of renegotiation…. Out is out’.” (Source: “EU referendum: Juncker in ‘out is out’ warning to UK”, BBC News Web site, 22nd June 2016.)

Then we have daft as a brush, Justin Welby has calling for the hiking death duties by £9billion. (We still have not had the £1M threshold promised by Osborne yet and ratted on by him and Hammond). Fine lets start with a benefit in kind tax on Bishop who get use of palaces and then a 40% tax on the churches assets ever time an ex and current Bishop of Canterbury dies. Then get rid of charitable status for the very many religious and other charities that often do so very little of real charitable value. So many charities especially the larger ones are a racket.

Hiking death taxes by £9 billion would probably reduce overall tax take and hugely damage the economy in the long run as people would leave and not come. Can the Bishop not think a little deeper before opening his mouth? Or does he just take instruction from mad voices in his head?

Does he mention interest rates? Does he mention out of control immigration?

An economy which works for everyone is as nonsensical as when Mrs May said it. How can an interest rate work for everyone? How can out of control immigration work for everyone? How can high taxation work for anyone?

So, it would seem that contrary to the beliefs of Andy it is not only the people of the UK that are concerned about uncontrolled immigration! People from all countries are beginning to realise that the situation is out of control. I notice that when asked they can never put a number on how many people we should be taking. Not forgetting that the African continent alone has many millions of people looking for a better and for the most part paid for life elsewhere.

Probably not, since you won’t admit to owing the public a penny for pensions. You made promises about publishing the pension debts, and we are still waiting for the number.

It’s pretty obvious as to why. Publish the debt and the public will work out what’s going to happen. It then gets very ugly. You missed the opportunity in 2010 to blame Labour.

SO here’s an idea. I could stand for parliament. That’s a free mailshot. I put together something that looks like a final demand from HMRC. Pay up your £430,000 debt with interest or we jail you etc. The usual threats of violence.

What do you think the reaction of the electorate would be to being told the truth about the mess?

I know your reaction, as with other MPs. It involves expletives and turning purple with rage.

As in the UK so the world over. The establishment declared the order of things and then uses the mechanisms it has set up to prevent changes to the status quo.

UKIP polled 4 million votes in a general election to return but one MP and so have no influence beyond heckling. The SNP has managed to break the mould but only because they can not achieve critical mass and so are not a threat.

Voters need to choose parties other than the mainstream to change this but will not. Mr Redwood himself will not change parties as he says he can influence more from a mainstream party. Plus ca change.

We have it in our power to make change without revolution and democratically, but we don’t.

The rise of the far right is not due to any engineering. It is history repeating itself because the conditions are becoming optimal.

The far right is very active throughout Europe, but we don’t hear much about it because it’s covertly censored.

There will be a right wing power grab / coup whatever you want to call it, somewhere in Europe. I suspect either by Marine Le Pen in france or the AfD in Germany. Other countries will follow and it’s goodnight corrupt EU.

Then, when we get liberals and lefties whinging about the right taking power, I look forward to the opportunity to respond thus; ‘well what did you think was going to happen? idiots’

The EU and it’s regional quislings failed to learn from history, in that peoples cannot be subjucated indefinitely.

The destruction of the main centre-left and centre-right parties may not be such a good thing. Yes, it’s good because they have failed to be responsive to their demos’ wishes. But it is bad because their destruction within each member weakens those nations, thus playing into the hands of the EU. Each time we appear to cut off one of the heads of the EU Hydra, it grows another and becomes stronger. We will only survive by leaving.

Para.4. We acknowledge that free, fair, and mutually beneficial trade and investment, while creating reciprocal benefits, are key engines for growth and job creation. We recommit to the conclusions on trade of the Hamburg G20 Summit, in particular, we underline the crucial role of a rules-based international trading system and continue to fight protectionism. We note the importance of bilateral, regional and plurilateral agreements being open, transparent, inclusive and WTO-consistent, and commit to working to ensure they complement the multilateral trade agreements. We commit to modernize the WTO to make it more fair as soon as possible. We strive to reduce tariff barriers, non-tariff barriers and subsidies.

Six of those present were from the EU, so why are the EU opposing the Brexit objective of working to WTO rules?

G20 – We underline the crucial role of the rules-based international trading system. We note the importance of bilateral, regional and plurilateral agreements being open, transparent, inclusive and WTO-consistent, and commit to working to ensure they complement the multilateral trade agreements. We welcome the entry into force of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement and call for its full implementation including technical assistance to developing countries. We commit to work together with all WTO members to make the eleventh WTO Ministerial Conference a success. To further improve the functioning of the WTO, we will cooperate to ensure the effective and timely enforcement of trade rules and commitments as well as improve its negotiating, monitoring and dispute settlement functions.

“so why are the EU opposing the Brexit objective of working to WTO rules?”

Are they?

I thought it [WTO being a problem] was mainly coming from the UK and specifically those that wish to remain in the EU. Of course the EU is “stoking the fire” of confusion within the governing party here…

“We welcome the entry into force of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement”, under which each country is positively required to adjust its customs procedures to reflect risk, rather than treating all imports from all Most Favoured Nation sources in an identical fashion – as recognised by our Department for International Trade:

“As it happens I have just this morning received an email response from a lady in Liam Fox’s department, as follows:

“Dear Dr Cooper

Thank you for your email dated 8 August to The Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP, regarding future compliance with Article 7.4 of the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation after the UK has left the EU …

… The Government’s assessment is that under a no deal scenario, imports from the EU would still not be classified as ‘high risk’. This is based upon the reading of the Trade Facilitation Agreement at 7.4 (4):

‘Each Member shall base risk management on an assessment of risk through appropriate selectivity criteria. Such selectivity criteria may include, inter alia, the Harmonized System code, nature and description of the goods, country of origin, country from which the goods were shipped, value of the goods, compliance records of traders, and type of means of transport.’… “

J, Suggest you get your thoughts together on the news that Russian operatives were at work in our country using chemical weapons. Strongly suggest you park Brexit for the time being and give a reaction on the two that have been identified today…

In the albeit unlikely even either of those two being brought to trial in the UK it would be a simple matter for their lawyers to argue that a fair trial was not possible if John and other prominent people started sounding off now as if they were already guilty.

The UK can do very little apart from soliciting help from the Western Nations to close their doors to Russia.
The problem there is that the EU relies on Russia for their energy. So how can EU embargoes be enforced when Putin can turn off their tap?
Do you have any suggestions? We no longer have a World Class Navy or Airforce or a big enough Army due to multi-Government cuts so single military action has to be off the list and NATO is not as well equipped as it should be. So do we revert to Chemical weapons and fight fire with fire? Or just ponder?

The two are related. Is a government led by Mrs May the one you would choose to defend UK against such threats. Judging by her ambitions to make UK a vassal of the EU with unqualified for its common defence and security polices, I would suggest not. We have now got to the point where the best thing anyone in this government can do is to stop Mrs May doing anything at all. She is a threat to this country far greater than anything Putin could achieve. Is he threatening to force UK into submission to Russian rule for at least the next generation? I think not. But Mrs May is desperate to consign UK to EU vassalage.

an MP is asking Dominic Raab and Olly Robbins whether the economic analyses of various Brexit scenarios had been updated before Theresa May got her cabinet to Chequers and told them to accept her crazy plan, and then whether they have been updated since then and will be updated before MPs vote on a withdrawal agreement.

I am frankly amazed that anybody can still have any confidence at all in any of the economic analyses – not forecasts or predictions, of course, we heard yesterday –

even though the decision to default to the already existing and in force WTO treaties is a decision which the UK could take unilaterally without having to persuade the EU to go along with a new trade treaty.

The other equally fallacious determinant of UK policy being Theresa May’s silly decision to accept responsibility for what the EU may choose to do on its side of the Irish land border, rather than saying that it will be entirely up to them but she is prepared to help them out by passing a new export control law to restrict the goods which may be carried across the border to those which the EU will allow in its Single Market.

One of them wriggles around claiming a need to preserve cabinet confidentiality while the other squirms about refusing to comment on leaked reports, and the end result is that our elected representatives are not even allowed to know whether members of the cabinet had updated versions of these defective analyses available to take into account before they went along with Therolly’s crazy scheme.

We should reject all criticism of populism which is the voice of the people. We should act against the Liberal Fascists who the authoritarian elitists desperate to control us and our views. They are the enemies of freedom.

You have confined your comments regarding the destruction of the main centre left and centre right parties to what is happening on the continent and this is undeniable.

However, one could say that this trend had already started in the UK with the emergence of UKIP. Its rise to 4 million votes gathered at a general election was at the expense of both the conservative and labour parties. The promise of a referendum and the subsequent vote to leave the EU killed overnight UKIP’s momentum as voters assumed that we would be leaving the EU completely and there was no longer a need for UKIP.

I suggest that both main parties may need to think how they will respond to a resurgence of a UKIP-type movement.

So far your Prime Minister seems to think she can just ignore the referendum result and continue on her Chequers ‘deep and special partnership’ path – with a little tinkering here and there.

She does nothing to keep in touch with grassroot voters as that also would require her to stand up to the EU in the Brexit negotiations and fulfil the wishes of the British people as expressed in the referendum result.

A BRINO could be the start of the destruction of the main centre-left and centre-right parties here in the UK.

It’s clear that First Past the Post voting in this country has failed us..we need electoral reform perhaps to go to a proportional representation PP style- because looking to the future- if we keep looking out the same window we’re only going to still see the same things- massive change is called for

Two strands of governance philosophy come together in the EU: socialism and technocracy. Both believe a minority should hold sway over popular opinion on the grounds that their views are inherently superior to those of less educated people. The lack of accountability of the EU is not a problem for them. They follow the Marxist strategy of infiltrating the educational establishment to ensure the young properly understand their doctrine and that there is ultimately only one source of correct values and beliefs: the state.
Basically ordinary folk in UK, in the EU, in the USA have had enough of being told what to think and having their lives regulated in ever more intrusive and detailed ways by the state. Of course there are variations in detail and in specific areas of policy but the general thrust is rejection of increasingly intrusive and intolerant government. The common cry is for Heavens sake just leave us alone.

Germany, Finland etc want the Euro to be a strong currency without fiscal transfers, while Club Med want either a weak Euro or a strong Euro with fiscal transfers from rich Member States to poorer ones.

The ‘compromise’, aimed at kicking the can down the road, is for the ECB to provide liquidity to countries like Greece and Italy by buying their government bonds. It will all end in tears when these countries cannot pay their debts.

That program is now coming to an ens and anyway the ECB cannot buy everything. It has to be of sufficient quality. The main thing the ECB’s QE program has achieved is that a group of systemically important banks have been able to avoid nationalisation. In contrast, pre ECB QE Germany had to virtually nationalise two large banks (on top of the erxisting public sector banks. The UK had to rescue RBS, brought down as a direct result of regulatory failure. Bank regulation has been tightened, budget discipline is improving and the system has far more stability than it had before. Club Med members are still complaining, but this is rhetoric: countries like Spain are on track to become more transparent, less closed to interntional investment and better at protecting business against corruption and cronyism. Italy will learn eventually and Lega could turn out to be a force for good, despite the pseudo-fascist rhetoric. Five Star will disappear and in general, Italy’s big banks are recovering. The problem sits in institutions with too many close ties to local “businesses”.

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, He graduated from Magdalen College Oxford, has a DPhil and is a fellow of All Souls College. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.